


Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blow-Job

by Unovis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:15:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unovis/pseuds/Unovis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen separate remixes of a story, Sherlock/Lestrade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blow-Job

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Object of Focus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/149076) by [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain). 



> It's a remix. Thirteen different ways, as it says, structure and title borrowed from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," by Wallace Stevens. One part in particular borrows directly from that poem.
> 
> Interesting vignettes on their own, but the different approaches make more sense if you read the story it's based on.
> 
> Based on Object of Focus by Jain, created for Sherlock Remix on LJ, posted March 31, 2012. [Commentary on this remix is here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1268656)

  
1.  
“Oh, Mum,” sighed Greg, dipping a madeleine into his Scotch and hot milk. “It’s not a class thing, or an age thing, or a ... gorgeous bloke thing; it’s _him._ ”  
  
“Chin up, pet. There’s a nice open letter to you in your alumni paper, with some quite practical advice. I put a clipping in with this week’s parcel.”  
  
Greg moaned and picked crumbs from the dish balanced on his stomach. He couldn’t say what ached worse, his knees or his heart. If he had had lube to hand, instead of a dry finger, if he hadn’t eaten spicy Vindaloo before sucking that delicate-skinned thickness into his mouth, would his genius tormentor have stayed? Did he need more than Sherlock could, or would, ever give?  
  
“...beads?”  
  
“Sorry, Mum, missed that.” A creak of the loose board outside his door.  
  
“Our Alan says...”  
  
His creak? His step? A pick-pocketed key jiggling Greg’s lock?  
  
“Must run.” He sploshed milk on his hand and sucked it up, pushing off the bed and into his slippers. “Call you tomorrow. Ta.”  
  
Oh, tonight, tonight, they had at least tonight. He patted his coverlet in wordless promise.  
  
2.  
Fellatio against the wall of a holding cell, no matter how obliging his Detective Inspector might be, how flexible, how accommodating, how adapted to his tastes, was no substitute for a proper seeing-to in a comfortable bed. In that same DI’s own flat, own bed, under the correctly adjusted lampshade, with the intriguingly knobbed and swirled glass appliance in Sherlock’s coat pocket (in its original unbreached packaging, abstracted from the crime scene; it wasn’t a murder weapon, per se, so no loss to the “investigation” stumbling forward). (Cretins.)  
  
He did like being...filled: vigorously, thoroughly, attentively, through the Inspector’s agency of instinct times experience achieving thrust. Age an advantage, there, knowledge, disreputable youth outclassing (underclassing) Sherlock’s own formative stumbles and missteps. Weight, too. A bear, a bull. A powerful elbow. His Inspector played his body, this transport, this needy, slender being like a voiceless violin. (Silence, he discovered early, was a scourge to greater endeavor; his swallowed gasps, his quiet exhalations bringing such a look, such focus, such tension to the hands and mouth impressed on him.) The less he offered, the harder he was pursued, the greater pleasure was provided to them both.  
  
Doubt he planted, of his return. Doubt, that would pique his Inspector’s appetite. On the street outside the station he turned up his coat collar, brushed the back of his hand across the dampness of his flies (delightful). To home, to waste an hour or two, before the greater match.  
  
3.  
“Sir...”  
  
“Pack up Donovan, nothing left for us here.”  
  
“Press, Sir. And you’ve...”  
  
“They’re for Sherlock. Have Duffy push them back; it’s a crime scene, not a circus. Dinner! Go home!”  
  
“ _Knees, Sir_ ,” she hissed. God damn the Freak, but now she always noticed. And Anderson owed her a pint.  
  
4.  
What they had was nothing like stability or permanence. He’d be a fool to want that from Sherlock Holmes. Five years now, on the side, more than his marriage vowed for life. Short life. Sharp death. But there were no vows here. All present and past, no lies for a future. This filled the need: good enough to work off the anger, the rush, the frustration, the blood, the bang of the job. No better cure for a bungled bust than to plow into that plush, tight arse. Make him squirm. Make him hitch across the sheets. No better ease, truth be told, for coming up short, for stripes from that lashing tongue, than to suck him down into silence, undone against a wall. Greg had a tongue. He had a broad, blunt finger that knew its way up a drainpipe as well. And if he let himself at times be pushed to the floor, let his head be turned, his hands placed so, his patience put to...well. Give and take, eh?  
  
They’d used each other naked. They’d seen each other’s scars. Greg took and had taken more than Sherlock knew, and that was more than good enough for him.  
  
5.  
His eyes, he liked his eyes, brown, dark, and deep, looking at him mid-suck, in this curious, giving act. In holding his look, he wondered what was seen in turn, if his own light irises could embrace wells of such lust, such want, such need. He imagined balancing a mirror on Greg’s-- _oh_ \--now what? He must have smiled. Interesting.  
  
6.  
John Watson is not an unobservant man. When Sherlock comes in like this, he can tell what he’s been up to, and it makes him sad. Angry sad. Disappointed?  
  
“Again?” he says, and it barely interrupts Sherlock’s coat-doffing performance, whipping off the scarf, stripping the gloves from his hands, swirling off the coat to hang it behind the door. There’s just a look thrown over Sherlock’s shoulder in mid turn and a frown before he cuts across the room for the kitchen. He won’t be best pleased when he smells the bleach John had to use, reclaiming their second-best saucepan. He’s been in a black, bored strop for the past week and John should be grateful for a diversion. But not this.  
  
“That was petty,” says Sherlock in the doorway.  
  
“Hygienic,” says John. Speaking of hygiene to the man with the wet patch on his crotch. He has the discretion to conceal the nicotine patches on his arms, but not this. Sherlock intercepts him looking, has anticipated it. Enjoys it, who can say?  
  
“You’re a hypocrite, Doctor Watson.”  
  
“Married to your work,” quotes John back at him. It’s not a new counter, but it still stings. It stings John. Sherlock makes a face, a not unpained one. “Don’t expect me to clean that up as well, when it dies,” John adds, but Sherlock’s already turned into his room, slamming the door.  
  
7.  
The first time he touched Sherlock it was his fingers in his hair. Fist in his hair, pulling his head back and shining a pencil torch into his eyes. It felt shockingly good, his hand in that mop, dirty and damp as was, and the pulling of it, moving that heavy head, baring his throat. The first time Sherlock went down on him, fists in his trousers’ slack, thrusting him back against summer-hot bricks of the pub’s rear wall, kneeling in front of him oh God, intent on his work, was the next time Greg found himself knuckle deep in those curls, fingers grazing the skin under, over his skull, twisting in circles, trying not to grip and tug.  
  
When Sherlock touched his hair, he was weirdly tentative. Gentle, petting him, or letting strands slide between his fingers, studying them. The gray he might like or dislike. The difference in the textures. Intimate, it felt, and that was how Greg liked to think of it.  
  
8.  
 _Tonight, 8pm. SH_  
  
Busy  
  
 _Nothing in your diary. Order from Bombay Temple, they know my likes. SH_  
  
Brother  & wife in London  
birthday  
  
 _Family’s boring. I’m not. SH_  
  
Thicker than water  
  
...  
  
Deleted that you cunt  
  
 _Language, DI Lestrade. SH_  
  
Tomorrow  
  
 _Busy. SH_  
  
12  
  
 _Busy. SH_  
  
11?  
  
 _Oh, now you’re desperate._  
 _Busy. SH_  
....  
  
 _Deleted that. I’ll have you off by 8:30. SH_  
...  
  
 _Deleted THAT. Be ready. SH_  
  
  
9.  
If there was one thing Sherlock prized above all others when it came to human interaction, it was convenience, and Greg was certainly that. He was more, of course---whores were _convenient_ \--and by luck or willful blindness failed to realize it. If he did, if he tried to make this arrangement anything other than it was (whores delivered, whores were swift, universal, tractable, silent on command, disposable), then it would all be over. He’d lose again, who had lost so much, he’d be gone and done with Sherlock and that would be not good, not good at all. Fortunate he was so thick, fortunate he was so incapable of reading Sherlock’s tells (jacket sleeves, breathing, choice of words) (whores noticed his heartbeat) (Greg noticed when his muscles tensed, his scent, his taste, all commented on; was there more he kept to himself? Unlikely. He was so eager in the act to please, so anxious to perform). Sherlock himself did not know how they fit together, only that it worked. At the end of a case, it worked. In the middle of the night, it worked. In the dark despair of an alley, in a holding cell, on the carpet of his office, in the second-floor toilet of Barts, in Greg’s bed, on Greg’s sofa, over Greg’s table, in Greg’s arms; in Greg’s mouth; on Greg’s thighs; in his eyes, his hair, his voice, his hands broad, hot, generous on his back, across his skin, it functioned exceedingly well, it _worked._ More than _convenience_ , and only a fool like Greg would fail to see it was.  
  
10.  
Greg’s beard was heavier than Sherlock’s. It grew in quicker, was rougher to the touch, Sherlock said. Greg couldn’t tell. Sherlock’s dark hair showed as shadow through transparent skin, but was seldom grown enough to scratch or catch; or Greg’s fingers were too calloused to feel. Sherlock shaved closely and was finicky about his regimen. He frequented barbers. He came to Greg once after such a visit, grinning, flushed, eager for a tumble. The sheets and pillows smelled of some oily scent, from his cheeks and neck, that permeated even the laundry hamper. He’d broken in on Greg once while he was shaving, impatient with some new rag of fact; he’d reached across, taken the razor from his hand, and shaved the last few strokes himself, pushing to be away. Not productive, it turned out, for them both; he’d never been so hard so fast so early on a Tuesday standing at his sink.  
*  
Sherlock’s own skin felt different under his fingertips and back of his hand, something he’d tried again and again to quantify, experimenting once with Novocain injections to his cheek, unpleasantly informative but still lacking in some quality he could not define. His beard was different to Lestrade’s. It was fascinating to have someone at hand, at his hand, over a span of years. He savored Lestrade’s aging, he was greedy to feel and compare over _time_ (oh, luxury of one person to whom he had tactile, unrestricted access over time) the alterations, the base lines. His beard was rougher than Sherlock’s, its growth more rapid. He shaved with a cruder implement, he took no good care of his skin. When Sherlock’s cock was in Lestrade’s mouth and Sherlock could graze his fingernails across the outline of his own flesh, himself, the lovely wet lining sliding across him, the fat and muscle and thicker dermis between, the rasping bristles of his cheek under his nails, pressing on himself through all, it was exquisite, it caused his knees to loosen, it heightened all his senses almost unbearably.  
  
11.  
Sherlock was impatient, Sherlock was hard, and Greg loved him that way. There were advantages to a long fuse and a slow burn.  
  
It started over a body in the morgue, a young thug, fit, naked, cold, and good riddance from the streets. Molly tired and ready for them to leave, Greg tired and overworked and ready to roll out, Sherlock...Sherlock strung tight as a wire, vibrating across the table and the corpse and tapping---poking the tattoo on the lately departed’s penis. Pinching it, absently, pulling the skin between his thumb and fingers and Molly wincing at the sight. Greg slipped open the top button of his shirt, reaction to gag impulse, and growled. “Leave it, Sherlock. Case closed.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Irrelevant, inappropriate, asinine...”  
  
“At which you excel; I’m asking what it’s meant to represent. No,” he held a hand up in Greg’s face, “Don’t try. Molly, be a good girl and cut that off for me. Oh, just the skin,” he sneered.  
  
“I, no,” said the amazing, patient Molly. “Not if you’re just...no.”  
  
“We’re leaving now. Thank you, Dr. Hooper.” Greg put a hand round Sherlock’s bicep, the other flat and low in the middle of his jacketed back, and propelled him away. “No,” he said, preemptively, bracing for argument. But Sherlock only slanted a look at him, going through the doors. Greg smiled to himself. Odd, but not unprecedented. For insurance, he kept his hand in place on his back, down the hallway to the lift. It felt good. It felt downright illicit, in public. The gesture he’d use for a cuffed prisoner. For warning. For comforting a woman. For a date. Which Sherlock was not and would never be. He faked a frown to Sherlock’s profile as he stabbed the button for the lift, and, ah. The look in Sherlock’s eye, the twitch of his mouth’s corner, the lean back against his arm and hand.  
  
“Oh, yes?” he said, as the lift bell dinged and the doors opened. Sherlock quirked his mouth again, and stepped in among the four occupants. Students, damned students, with clipboards and lab coats.  
  
“Irrelevant. Inappropriate. Indecent,” rumbled Sherlock, and turned facing front, at Greg’s back. The lift started with a little jolt, nudging them together. Up, not down. He hadn’t noticed; but Sherlock, surely, had. Pressure against his waist now. He knew those knuckles, there. Pressure against his waist and, when another jolt came, heralding the lift’s next stop, another pressure against his hip. No. Yes? No, surely no. Tattooed corpse cock did not, did definitely not, lead to this.  
  
“Don’t overthink it, Detective Inspector,” said Sherlock, in his ear, damn the man, tall enough, just tall enough for his lips to be at that level when he bent his head.  
  
“Get off,” muttered Greg, and the elevator gave another jolt, another floor, and that pressure against his hip became pronounced. The doors opened and Sherlock pushed; Greg stood his ground, the lift emptied, filled, and began to descend. Sherlock’s trousers were fine wool, summer blend, and his interest was firmly evident through them. Greg’s khakis, rumpled now, a bit worn, slid against him, when he shifted his weight. He did. Twice. He ran the map of Barts, what parts he knew, in his head; nothing suitable came to mind, though Sherlock knew the place intimately _(intimately). Jolt. Ding._ The floor of the lift vibrated under his feet. He shifted again and Sherlock pressed harder against him, breathing now on his neck. Or they could continue riding up and down, up and down, jolting along, until--  
  
“We’re not doing this in a lift,” announced Sherlock in ringing tones (startling the sole remaining passenger, gray, untidy, and spectacled, squeezing a coffee container). _Jolt. Ding._ “He has these fantasies,” he tossed over his shoulder, smiling wide, shoving Greg forward and out, his hand where Greg’s had been, flat on his back.  
  
“You consummate prick,” said Greg. Laughing, he couldn’t help it. Sherlock pushed him right, then left, then through swinging doors into a darkened room. Second floor? He’d lost count, he’d no idea what place this was, but there, there, was a corner, a wall against his back, Sherlock pulling close, pressing long and full and hard all against his front, kissing him.  
  
12.  
Even against the wall  
ecstatic, interlocked  
they were of two minds  
a tree  
in which there were two blackbirds.  
  
13.  
He hadn’t known it was the last. Stayed up like a berk, waiting for Sherlock to return, take his time, get a bed under their backs. Woke on the sofa with the telly run to Jeremy Kyle and a crick in his neck. It took weeks, untallied weeks, before he got it clear. Weeks and only an offhand “No,” and a glance flicked to John waiting in the corridor, laughing. And oh, God, a grimace of pity from Donovan, when they swept away. He’d seriously misread John Watson and the home life of Baker Street.  
  
He’d braced himself for this, for years. He’d assumed he’d drink. He’d assumed, surely, he’d feel pain. He hadn’t expected sheet lightning that froze and seared incandescent white; he hadn’t expected ash, only ash, left behind.  



End file.
